No Rapping, No Autotune, Just 2NE1 Giving Life to Their New Hit "Lonely"

credit Cutie_JaeHwa @soompi A mere three weeks since Park Bom's last hit single 'Don't Cry', YG unveils the second song to hit our collective eardrums... LONELY. Described as refreshing by will.I.am, no doubt it gives us a new kind of breeze, unusual to Kpop these days. "Lonely" the Concept(s) When Blackjacks heard that the title song was called "Lonely" a great number of ideas sprang to mind. Perhaps it was another sad love song about searching for "the one", or having the person you love in love with someone else, always a topic for song writers. But 2NE1 and Teddy have taken a broad and simple concept in a whole different direction. What happens when you're in a great relationship with someone who truly cares for you and find that your feelings waning? How does that fact torment you? How do you end this relationship with a wonderful person? How can you bear to hurt them when they haven't hurt you? All that and more is explored in the exquisite track that is "Lonely". The light acoustic accompaniment in the background is a great starting point. The girls voices are laid bare and really convey the acute pain of being the "villain," both the person who fell out of love first and the person who must be the one to break a heart. Society teaches us that once you're in a relationship with someone who really cares for you, you will be happy forever. But this is not always the case.  Written by Teddy, 'Lonely' is a song that expresses one's wavering love, it's wistful and meloncholy, but not overly melodramatic. The lyrics are like a conversation between two lovers at the end of their relationship. You can just imagine a fight and the boyfriend literally just said "What's going on with you? You've changed, what's happening to us?" then CL launches into her first verse, the wistful break-up speech... ...which leads to Minzy admitting that she's changed, Dara admitting that the guy is great, and Bom describing how she still feels lonely despite being with him and asks for forgivness. "Lonely" the Music Video 2NE1 delivers a fresh punch to the fans; their much anticipated music video showed a very unique concept. With their movements in sync, they are portray a girl who is lost and confused. The music video used minimal colors which made the aura very warm creating an atmosphere perfect for the song. Each segment was pieced together well to create a beautiful transition from one girl to another. As you can see below, until the very end, none of the girls appear on screen together, they act as a single person... It's hard to physically showcase feelings, especially one as broad as loneliness. But through creative symbolism and even the colour tone of the music video it was carried off very well. It opens up with a shot of CL staring morosely out of the window and you instantly take notice that all of the colors are practically washed out with a grey tone despite the brief flashes of red shown through the girls' outfits. The girls slowly moving around the busy building is a great physical representation of loneliness. When you're feeling down and isolated you feel sluggish, barely keeping up with the world as it moves on without you. The muted colours showcase how you notice everything, but its not as vivid as before, its being dimmed by this hollowing sadness. Eventually by the ending scene we notice that everything has practically gone all white, the girls are back in the building the music video started out with but this time its completely empty. Its like they have come full circle. White is a great symbol of nothingness, a blank slate, or even a fresh start. The last shot shows that the girls are on the roof with one foot forward and looking back over their shoulder, just about to embark on something new and remembering where they've been. Ultimately this music video could be interpreted in many ways, it could be seen as extremely sad, but by the ending you can't help but feel a sense of hope that perhaps next time, in another story, things will be different. Note: The music video for ‘Lonely’ is a work of Han Samin, the director who had directed the music video for Big Bang’s 4th mini special album’s title song, ‘Love Song’. "Lonely" the Aftermath Instantly after its release, the Lonely Fever that had been building since CL's tiny preview on the first episode of YG On Air, went full supernova. At one point, the girls video was receiving so many comments that the youtube servers could not handle the onslaught and there was a momentary crash... the power of blackjacks strikes again. Seems like Blackjacks were having a blast capping 2NE1's All Kill  As you may have heard, Lonely is currently an ALL-KILL on the music charts. Lonely took a bit longer to attain All-Kill status than Don't Cry. The Greatest Love OST yesterday dominated the charts and is still doing well. In addition, Beast released a digital single at the same time as Lonely. Attaining #1 on any chart would be tough let alone an all-kill. Considering that Beast has almost DOUBLE the number of registered Daum fancafe members (187,656 vs 2NE1's 96,427) and their rising popularity plus other single releases, 2NE1 was not a shoo-in for the #1 spot....or so we thought. At 1:00 am KST, most of the Korean music portals were updating their real time charts for the first time of the day. Whatever snafu happened last time with Cyworld seems to have been fixed, as the single was available on Cyworld at the same time as the other songs unlike with Don't Cry. Lonely was #1 on most, but not all the major portals, they were #2 behind the OST single on Bugs and #4 on Dorisak. As for Mel0n...it usually doesn't' t update until 16 minutes pass the hour, there were also concerns as the site traffic was crashing Mel0n servers. When Mel0n finally updated, Blackjacks and the public were astounded. Not only was 2NE1 the clear #1 on Korea's hardest online chart to top, but they hit the roof, then went over the roof, then tore down the roof, and Mel0n hasn't been able to rebuild it yet  . According to K-blackjacks, this chart is the steepest they have ever seen. Bom's Don't Cry was not far behind at #4. In 2010, Mel0n adjusted the roof of their online chart because of Superstar K winner Huk Gak's phenomenal digital single numbers. In 2011, will Mel0n have to do the same thing, this time because of Park Bom and 2NE1? By 2:00am KST Lonely was #1 on all the real-time charts including Cyworld, Bugs, and Dorisak. Melon  Monkey3 bugs dosirak  soribada cyworld bgm mnet  Naver Daum credit: cristina0422 @soompi Just awhile ago at 7:00 AM KST 2NE1 went over the roof AGAIN! The Domination Continues... For a little persepctive, obtaining #1 in real-time is not THAT hard to do, its the Daily, Weekly, and Monthly charts that really show the popularity, or lack thereof, for a song. This instant success is great, but lets all hope the general public has fallen for the song as hard as we have and it has stays for a long time on high atop the charts. Also, International Blackjacks were trending #2NE1lonely to the #3 spot worldwide, where it stayed for several hours. The trending description originally said "All girls aged 21 are feeling lonely now," however we Blackjacks know EXACTLY why it was trending. (The description has been changed to properly explain the hashtag.) Minzy must have noticed the trending, because she attempted to trend with us as well. For the Jay Park fans out there her cute mistakes remind us of when he first made his twitter account. So cute. Finally, love him or hate him within te first few hours of Lonely's release uberblogger Perez Hilton posted the video on his site. We ♥ 2NE1 too Perez^^ credit: cristina0422 @soompi As always, 2NE1 needs and deserves our full support. If you can, please purchase legal copies of the single from Korean music portals or Itunes when available. One Soribada coupon can be used to stream on three different computers. Also, don't forget Itunes' gift function. Source: Melon, Soribada, Mnet, Daum, Naver, Bugs, Monkey3, Cyworld, Dosirak, PerezHilton.com, 2NE1's Official Youtube Unless otherwise tagged, thanks to erikarafaela, zeelicious, dee829 and ju!ceB0X @ygladies for the marvelous caps Article by hellocatty, Viscount, tazanya, and bigbangxsaranghae @ygladies.com